The Swim Brief
A swimming podcast featuring natural conversations about the sport. Chris DeSantis brings the poolside conversation to the podcast form.
Episodes
465 episodes
The Coaching Culture That Pushes Parents Out: Tracy Slusser
Tracy Slusser has coached three NCAA championship teams. She has also experienced a coaching culture that made having children feel incompatible with doing the job at the highest level.We talk about the expectations she absorbed early in...
Don't Finish The Athlete
What is a developmental coach actually trying to finish?Longhorn Aquatics head coach Mike Laitala joins Chris DeSantis to discuss why producing fast young swimmers is not the same as preparing athletes for long-term success. They explore...
Wisdom Isn’t Taught. It’s Revealed
Jack Roach has spent a lifetime learning from coaches—and helping coaches and athletes learn from one another.In this conversation, Jack reflects on his time leading USA Swimming’s National Junior Team, where he helped create development...
Building Swimmers Who Want To Be There: Jonathan Kaplan
What makes swimmers want to keep showing up—not because an attendance policy requires it, but because they genuinely want to be there?Jonathan Kaplan, head coach and director of SwimRVA, joins Chris to discuss a collaborative approach to...
Building Culture in College Swimming’s Transactional Era
What does it take to build a championship-level program without allowing college swimming to become purely transactional?Stanford men’s swimming head coach Dan Schemmel joins Chris DeSantis to discuss his unlikely path from Hawaii to one...
Building Women's Sports Differently: Ted Lasso Season 4
Ted Lasso returns with a new challenge: building a women’s team inside a sporting structure created for men.Chris DeSantis and Juliet Suess discuss what the opening episodes of season four reveal about coaching, leadership and the system...
Why Swimmers Aren’t Eating Enough | Alicia Glass
Swimmers spend hours in the pool, yet many still aren’t eating enough to support the work they’re doing.Alicia Glass, Sport Dietitian for USA Swimming, joins to explain why swimmers need to think more like endurance athletes—and what hap...
To Save Swimming, Start With the Coaches | Doug Cornish
Swimming has spent decades asking coaches to become more professional. But has the profession done enough to support them in return?Doug Cornish is a former swim coach, financial planner, and the creator of the 2025 Swim Coaches Compensa...
The Making of a Head Coach | Margo Geer
Margo Geer’s path to becoming the head coach at the University of Alabama was anything but conventional. When she took over the program at 28, plenty of people questioned whether she was ready.Six years later, Margo joins me to discuss w...
Reflecting on 50 Years of Coaching | Don Wagner
Don Wagner spent more than fifty years coaching swimmers at every level of the sport—from developing young athletes to coaching Olympic champion Janet Evans during the most dominant stretch of her career.In this conversation, Don reflect...
How Do Great Programs Stay Great? | Todd DeSorbo
Todd DeSorbo has built one of the most dominant programs in college swimming history—but he says there was never a master plan.In this conversation we explore what it actually takes to sustain excellence year after year, why coaching eli...
Leadership, Responsibility, and Shame in The Odyssey
What can The Odyssey teach us about leadership when every available choice carries consequences?Chris is joined by Juliet Seuss for a different kind of episode: a conversation about Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and t...
We Protect Athletes. Who Protects Coaches? | Sophie Parr
For years, conversations about athlete welfare have rightly transformed the way we think about coaching. But there's another side of the equation that receives far less attention:Who protects coaches?This week I'm joined by...
The Parent Pressure Trap: Why Giving In Makes It Worse
Why do parents keep intervening in coaching decisions—and why does giving in usually make the problem worse?In this solo brief, I describe the fear underneath parent pressure: the belief that failing to secure every possible opportunity ...
The Most Important Thing a Coach Can Say After Failure | Dave Salo
Dave Salo has coached at every level of the sport—from NCAA championships to Olympic medals—but this conversation isn't about workouts or sets.Instead, we explore the decisions that define great coaching.We discuss why process mat...
Debrief: Jeana Kempe
The head coach of Swimming and Diving at the University of Illinois Jeana Kempe joins to talk influences and the path of her coaching career.
Debrief: David Marsh
David Marsh tells all about what his retirement actually looks like, and what he had planned if he was National Team Director. ...
Debrief: Tracy Menzel
Tracy Menzel joins to talk GAIN, Diversity and why she’s back coaching in her hometown. ...
Bonus Pod: A Day With Greg Meehan
Recapping the day I spent following around USA Swimming National Team Director Greg Meehan at last week’s Indy Pro Series event. ...
Debrief: Dave Durden
Dave Durden joins to discuss how he approaches his unconventional start at Cal and his approaches to recruiting and hiring. ...
Debrief: Megan Devito
Megan Devito, a high school swim coach and performance mindset coach, joins to talk shop on the value of coaching. ...
Debrief: Kevin Ring, USA Swimming CEO
The CEO of USA Swimming joins to share what he’s learned in his nine months on the job and what he thinks is possible for the future. ...
Debrief: Cara Stawicki
Former National Team and World Champion rower Cara Stawicki joins to talk shop and even turns the tables on me. Links for Cara:Website: https://ca...
